It’s A New Day In Tampa Bay Team’s Best Start Since 1979 Helping Erase Memories Of Mistake-Ridden Past

Perceptions are difficult to change, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - the NFL’s biggest loser during the past 15 years - are making progress.

The team’s best start since 1979 is proof things have changed on the field, as well as in the front office, where the club is trying to shake the image of doing almost everything wrong except making money.

Poor draft-day decisions, bonehead trades and the miserly ways of the late Hugh Culverhouse contributed to the Bucs’ seemingly endless futility.

One savior, Bo Jackson, wouldn’t join the team. Another, Vinny Testaverde, failed to play up to expectations attached to a Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 pick in the draft.

Broderick Thomas, Keith McCants, Lars Tate and Reggie Cobb were first- and second-round selections who had minimal success. Throw in four coaching changes in eight years, plus an unprecedented streak of 12 consecutive seasons with at least 10 losses, and you begin to understand what the team has had to overcome.

Tampa Bay’s new saviors have names like Alvin Harper, Hardy Nickerson, Jackie Harris, Trent Dilfer, Errict Rhett, Chidi Ahanotu, John Lynch and Martin Mayhew. They’re all part of what Bucs owners tout as “A New Day in Tampa Bay.”

“We’ve changed, although I wouldn’t say it’s taken place here recently as much as it’s been the last couple of years,” general manager Rich McKay said. “I think people perceive us as on the rise, but you have to win to really firmly convince them.”

At 5-2, Tampa Bay leads the NFC Central after seven games for the first time in 16 years. McKay was a 20-year-old college student when his father, John, led the 1979 Bucs to a franchise-best 10-6 record and came within one victory of going to the Super Bowl in the expansion team’s fourth season.

The Bucs are winning now much the way they did then, with a solid defense making up for the shortcomings of an offense led by a young quarterback.

The similarities are not lost on McKay, who disputes the contention Tampa Bay hasn’t finished above .500 since 1982 because management has been more concerned about profits than winning games.

“Mr. Culverhouse, I truly believe, was committed to winning,” the general manager said. “But he wanted to do it in a way he still was able to survive and be profitable. So, we placed limits upon that commitment.”

Those limits no longer exist.

Culverhouse died in August 1994, and Palm Beach financier Malcolm Glazer purchased the club for a record $192 million last winter. Two of Glazer’s sons, Bryan and Joel, have helped their father polish the Bucs’ image in the community.

The elder Glazer made friends by pledging to pay half the cost of a new $168 million stadium. He also appears willing to give McKay and coach Sam Wyche the resources necessary to field a winning team.

“He came in and was very clear from the first time I spoke with him that we needed to turn this thing around, and if that meant spending more dollars, that was going to happen,” McKay said. “That was music to my ears.”

The Bucs rose above speculation about the franchise’s future in Tampa Bay to win four of their last five games in 1994. Glazer’s first move as owner was to retain the general manager and Wyche.

Harper, perhaps the premier free agent available, signed a four-year, $10.6 million contract in March, less than a month after top-notch punter Reggie Roby received a three-year, $1.9 million deal.

Management paid handsomely to keep an improving offensive line together, then set the tone for a successful training camp by getting all the team’s rookies under contract within three weeks of the draft.

“Part of it was the fact the owner was very motivated in changing the image and trying to get things done,” McKay said.

The decision to retain Wyche, despite a 16-32 record, was not as difficult as some people imagined. The Glazers felt the coach earned an opportunity to continue what he started in 1992.

“Sam Wyche came within 30 seconds of winning a Super Bowl with the Cincinnati Bengals, who had a very low payroll at the time. Then he came to Tampa Bay with another very low payroll to work with,” executive vice president Bryan Glazer said.

“So, we felt as though he hadn’t had the tools to do the job that he’s capable of doing. He did a great job with very little before, and now we’re giving him those tools.”

A careful approach to free agency and more productive drafts under Wyche have helped. The scouting operation has been upgraded, and some nifty draft-day maneuvering in April enabled the Bucs to select Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks in the first round, while looking out for 1996.

Tampa Bay will have four picks in the first two rounds next spring - a pair of firsts and a pair of seconds. The team expects to be competitive in the free agent market, too.

NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw said the Bucs are a prime example of how the system is helping teams close the gap on more successful franchises.

“The reason Tampa Bay highlights it is the amount of money they’ve actually spent. They went out on the market and spent a lot of money acquiring players and to keep players they wanted,” Upshaw said.

“That’s what we hoped would happen. … It gives a team like Tampa Bay a chance to improve. We all sit around and watch Tampa try to improve through the draft and it just never happens. We always said this would help competitive balance more than anything.”

The Glazers expected improvement early in the season, but not such a rapid climb to first place. The Bucs, after all, are one of the youngest teams in the league.

Dilfer, 23, is improving weekly at quarterback and Rhett, 24, rushed for more than 1,000 yards as a rookie last year. Harper, a big-play receiver, who helped Dallas win two Super Bowl titles, is just 27.

If young defensive players like Sapp, Brooks, Melvin Johnson and Eric Curry, the sixth pick in the 1993 draft, progress as hoped, Tampa Bay could evolve into a perennial playoff contender.

“I felt like toward the middle of last year we started to play good football and we were becoming a good football team,” McKay said. “This year, I think you’re seeing that’s the case. … We’re a better team. How good are we? Who knows. We’ll have to wait and see.”